News, views, food, books and other writings, with the assist of character dolls. My art blog, dealing with fine art, exhibits and works in progress, is http://beautifulmetaphor.blogspot.com.
Please note that all pictures and text are copyright to Liz Adams, and may not be used in any form without explicit permission. Thank you for respecting my ownership.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

The Pussyhat Project and other Good Things

I interrupted my weaving journey to take a short while to knit a PussyHat to send to be worn by any marcher in the Million Women March on Washington (and a lot of other cities) the day after the inauguration.Since I won't be there in person, my work can be. So I embarked on this today as soon as I found out about the project, yes, late to the party, it's been going on ages in Facebook, where I don't go.

Anyway, I have about half a hat done, and some yarn on order to do a bit more. This yarn is significant in that it's from some I was given from the home of my late friend Karen, and I'm using it in her honor. She'd totally approve of this! and it's a great way to take part, and to memorialize a great woman now gone. It's fine yarn, in peach and in pink, and I'm knitting both together, so make a warm pink and the right gauge for the hat. And it will go as a gift to any marcher in the Washington group, to wear on the day, and keep as a reminder.

The pattern is uber simple, so even a new knitter can tackle it. It needs to be pink, for symbolic reasons, and it makes up into a hat with pointed ears, as the pussy symbol, one which women are taking back big-time! for obvious reasons.

If you want to be part of this, not a lot of time left to get a hat or more created and sent off, in good time to be received and distributed, go here.

Needless to say the Dollivers all want one, but I think humans come first this time. Several of them at once might model the hat before I ship it off.

Reading is always with us, and with the death yesterday of John Berger, I pawed through my bookshelves to reread Ways of Seeing, a brilliant and very approachable series of essays on art and how we perceive it, and how we interpret it without knowing, though the lens of our time. Very worth looking at. For artists, required reading, really, and for everyone, valuable.

Some chapters are all images, and you draw your own conclusions. A lot of it is about how women have been perceived, the assumption being that men perceive them, and that's what they're for. Berger eviscerates this notion, and goes beyond that into a very intelligent analysis of what we see and how and why we see it.

And the holiday stuff is away now, doesn't take long, just a couple of little bags, the gingerbread village leftover now hanging outside added to the bird feeders. And the crystals are going to stay on the tree, since they catch the morning sun and rainbows flash around the room, very cheering for someone like me, who wakes up feeling rather glum each day.

Having projects ready to dive into is always a good thing, especially this week, when I'm a bit housebound, under the weather a bit, but still knitting and reading and weaving.

I'm rereading Barbara Pym, always a huge comedy cheering up project, currently on Less Than Angels, one of the best. The character of Catherine Oliphant is one of the best in the Pym oeuvre, and if she doesn't exist in real life, well, she should.

I love the way Pym creates an entire world by having characters move in and out of novels, some main characters in one playing bit parts in others, or even just being reported on by friends. Sometimes she even describes characters without having her narrator know them, but the reader does, always a great touch.

So there are my current recommendations for making and reading, and decorating, for your entertainment!